Microsoft Still Pushing Consumers to 'Jump In'

As the Xbox 360 deals with its third holiday season, new bundles, SKUs and the momentum of Halo 3 continue to attract more customers. GameDaily speaks with Corporate VP Jeff Bell about Microsoft's holiday campaign initiatives.

Great interview I am a big fan of Jeff Bell especially his recent Mass Effect video and interview last week with Major Nelson on Inside Xbox. He's definitely the guy that Microsoft needs to expand its audience outside of the 18-35 male audience.

Here is some of my favourite quotes by Jeff Bell from the interview:

"In fact, we saw incredible sales of Xbox 360 for the week of November 18, including Black Friday of more than 310,000 Xbox 360 in the U.S. alone.

"We've also seen a strong response to both Halo 3 sales with more than 5 million, and Mass Effect which has sold more than a million copies in less than three weeks."

"And we are confident we've delivered on the promise we made at E3: Xbox 360 has the best lineup in video games history"

"So whether people are after a sports game like Madden NFL '08, a sci-fi RPG like Mass Effect, a music-based game like Guitar Hero III or Rock Band, or a trivia game like Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action, all the best games this holiday season for everyone in the family are on Xbox 360. It appears that consumers agree as Xbox 360 software is on track to continue outselling software of our competitors combined this holiday season."

my personal favourite quote:

"We have heard from one of our top retailers that the launch of Xbox 360 Arcade pushed sales to holiday levels before Thanksgiving. It's performed above what we've expected and has been embraced by consumers. In addition, on our Xbox 360 and Elite skus, we introduced two value bundles this holiday. At no additional cost, both consoles offer Forza Mortorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance in the box. This has certainly helped drive the great sales numbers we saw the week after Thanksgiving. The response from consumers definitely shows strong momentum behind the complete entertainment experience that Xbox 360 offers."

Jeff is a great addition to the Xbox 360 team and he has been critical in the successful repositioning of the Xbox 360 to attract a wider audience, this can be seen in the success of the Arcade SKU and strong software sales these holidays.

The 360 is due for a nice hefty price drop. This will really allow the 360 to get more to "Jump In".. It is just too closely priced with the 40gig PS3 SKU atm and without built-in WiFi or Blu-ray the perceived value is with the PS3. It's lacking in a few features and needs to be priced a bit more accordingly. The games library is unbeatable at the moment and that is attracting many buyers, but the PS3 is growing its catalog and that selling point will be harder to see as time goes on.